As a way of bringing the spirit and thrill of the Tennessee-based Bonnaroo Festival to the rest of the United States, headlining musicians Trey Anastasio and Ben Harper will kick off a series of summer concerts across the country dubbed the Zooma Tour, featuring a group of rotating support acts beginning in mid-June.
"It came up and when I heard it was with Trey I jumped at it," said Harper. "Personally, I thought it sounded great, and with the second stage and rotating groups coming on every few days, it just sounded too good not to do."
Harper and Anastasio will begin the tour in New Jersey June 16 and hit 29 cities throughout the season, ending July 31 at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington.
"You know the motion when you're on tour, they take on a life of their own," said Anastasio. "It's a living, breathing thing. At the beginning you're excited, then you go through emotional waves on the whole thing and so this is a change that happens automatically. Location has so much to do with music, so it's going to be different at the Gorge than it is in Cleveland."
The Zooma Tour will showcase music on two stages and an "activity village" with vendors and attractions. Locally, the tour will hit Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater July 28 and includes performances by G. Love & Special Sauce and Galactic.
"What's really cool is Trey and I, we have our own directions of musical interests and appreciation, but we also have a place where we meet dead center," said Harper. "Like our appreciation for, say, Jerry Garcia and Jerry's appreciation for the blues and for Hendrix and for Dylan and for Gillian Welch and Alison Krause. We both have a passion for people like Elizabeth Cotton and Woody Guthrie, all the way to modern music. It would be impossible for us not to musically collaborate and get together on some things.
"I just love making music anywhere any time, and when I'm with Trey, it just feels like the summer has a fresh feel to it. This tour has a fresh feel to it, the way it's structured, the bands that are on it. It draws you in, music pulls you in. There's nothing more seductive than music and love."
Creators of Bonnaroo- Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment - are organizing the Zooma Tour. According to promoters, between 20 and 25 bands and solo artists such as Medeski Martin & Wood, Gomez, Toots & The Maytals, Jurassic 5, Galactic, G. Love & Special Sauce, Black Keys, Brazilian Girls, Ray Lamontagne, Xavier Rudd and Donavon Frankenreiter will perform as rotating guest acts along the tour. Anastasio, Harper and his band the Innocent Criminals will serve as the headlining acts of each show.
"My experience in spending so much time at Bonnaroo is that you've got sort of an informed audience and that this festival is representative of that with all the different kinds of bands, so they wanted to take it on the road," said Anastasio. "That was a natural progression. I know, for myself Phish - my career with Phish was - we did a lot of festivals alone ... and we didn't have a lot of warm-up acts and I'm craving the experience of going out and collaborating with people, right now, at this stage of my career. Ben is somebody I'm dying to play with."
Anastasio, former guitarist of the now-defunct band Phish, played a farewell tour with the group's three other members in 2004 and subsequently began writing new material for his solo effort with his new band, 70 Volt Parade - Peter Chwazik on bass; Les Hall on keys, guitar and synths; Skeeto Valdez on drums; and Ray Paczkowski on keys.
Harper, originally from Claremont, Calif., this year put out the album "There Will Be A Light," collaborating with the Blind Boys of Alabama, a group founded in 1939.
"It's the first record I made that was of one style of music because I tend to jump around a bit. This record reeled me in and showed me the beauty of making a record with that type of synthesis and flow to it of one style and sound," said Harper, "When you're with the Blind Boys, you have to step up in a soulful way that doesn't always serve all the music, so I find myself having to reel myself in from super soul back to just sort of a straighter singing style." Harper is famous for his slide guitar work and soulful crooning while Anastasio has become popular as a virtuoso guitarist.
"The beauty of a jazz festival or the beauty of this kind of a festival, like a Zooma, you know, is you walk around the corner and it's the person you didn't expect to see who'll kick your ass," said Anastasio. "Like Ray's band, my keyboard player, Borgia. They're going to play a couple of shows. They're amazing and nobody knows that they even exist. Gabe Jarrett, Keith Jarrett's son, plays the drums and it's like a jazz trio."
One minute it can sound like harmonious progressive rock mixed with hints of classical music or melodious folk and the next it's an improvised concoction of funk, jazz and classic rock. It's music of none other than the six-man band Umphrey's McGee.
"We all basically have ADD and can't stand to stay in the same place," explained guitarist Brendan Bayliss. "Because we have so many different angles and options, it's hard to lock down and stay in one spot. In that regard it's challenging because we are less limited and we don't know if we should switch gears, but we're working on that."
Formed in South Bend, Ind., Umphrey's McGee is a group whose title was inspired by the name of a band member's uncle. It belongs to what critics call the jamband scene with its propensity for live improvisation and mixture of various styles with influences that range from the Beatles and Led Zeppelin to Yes, Genesis (Peter Gabriel-era, of course) and King Crimson to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis and Jaco Pastorius.
"Everybody approaches things differently and everyone works on stuff on their own," added Bayliss on the songwriting process. "Some of us are really good at taking someone else's idea and pointing out the strengths and eliminating or shortening the weaker parts. To be honest, every song is different. For me, I still approach it the way I would if I were writing a paper in college. I put if off until the last minute and then I cram it all in."
Umphrey's McGee has made its way into the hearts of a mainstream audience especially with the recent recognition in Rolling Stone magazine as an item on the publication's "2004 Hot List" that profiled the band's new album entitled "Anchor Drops."
"There are two ways that I look at the whole jamband thing," said Bayliss. "First, it's a good thing to be involved in a genre that is pretty well-talked about as of late and has a big base as far as listeners. Right now, it's a big community, and there are a lot of festivals and touring bands so the scene is big right now. It's a good thing to be a part of something that already has an infrastructure in place. On the other hand, there are so many bands out there and there is a certain connotation with the word jamband. A lot of people think they already know what the band sounds like, and expect long solos and noodling. So in that sense I think the definition is limited because I feel like some people are not as apt to go listen to it because they already think they know what it sounds like by definition."
Before gaining recognition in large magazines, the band already had a vast following of fans known as "Umphreaks" and "McGeeks," who live throughout the country. Some of these fans have even helped the band in developing a volunteer grass-roots publicity campaign that has become a great success.
In 1997, the merging of two South Bend bands created Umphrey's McGee with an original lineup of Joel Cummins (keyboards, vocals), Bayliss (guitar, vocals), Ryan Stasik (bass) and Mike Mirro (drums, vocals).
"It was right around seventh and eighth grade, and listening to some of the acoustic stuff on the (Beatles) 'White Album,'" recalled Bayliss about the first time music truly moved him. "'Julia,' that song got me at a young age. When I was a freshman in high school, my brother brought a guitar home back from college. Before that I was playing tennis. My dad was the head tennis coach at Notre Dame and as soon as my brother brought back the guitar I started playing guitar and stopped playing tennis. I didn't know I was trying to be a musician but my focus definitely shifted."
The group released its first studio work in 1998 titled "Greatest Hits Volume III" and later asked percussionist Andy Farag to join. Later that year, the band completed and released its second CD, "Songs For Older Women," with Farag as a member.
In 2000, guitarist Jake Cinninger began contributing his guitar chops and ace songwriting talents to the group. The group released a live album in 2000. It put out another studio record in 2002 called "Local Band Does OK," which helped to spread the band's name beyond the close-knit jamband community.
"In the beginning, I worked with Tony a lot because we were in different bands," explained Bayliss about his co-writing experiences with various band mates. "Once we formed the band with Joel, I started working with him a lot. Then once Jake joined I was doing a lot of stuff with him because I had never worked with him before. So, there really isn't a formula to it all but lately Jake and I have been doing more stuff together. It's a lot easier for us probably because we play the same instrument." In 2003, Mirro left the band for medical school, Chicago drummer Kris Myers joined and the group recorded its latest work that was released this fall.
Ace guitarist Derek Trucks is what you would call a music know-it-all. His musical tastes and inspirations come in numerous forms, everything from traditional Indian music to rock 'n' roll like the Allman Brothers Band to jazz giants such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane to classical pianist Glenn Gould.
Trucks, who grew up mostly in Atlanta, Ga., and now lives in Jacksonville, Fla., bought his first acoustic guitar for $5 at a yard sale when he was 9. Within the year, Trucks, who is self-taught, learned how to play the instrument and began touring, accompanied by his father who acted not only as his chaperon but his manager.
His first paying gig came at the age of 11 and Trucks later formed his first band at 12. He met his current bassist, Todd Smallie, in 1994 when Trucks was 15 and the following year, drummer Yonrico Scott, who has since rounded out the dynamic Derek Trucks Band rhythm section. The Derek Trucks Band maintains arguably one of the most musically and stylistically diverse group of players in today's modern rock scene.
Yonrico, 46, began playing the drums at the age of 7. While growing up in Detroit, he had the opportunity to study R&B among other things under the tutelage of Motown drummer George Hamilton prior to earning a bachelor's degree in percussion from the University of Kentucky.
Kofi Burbridge, who plays the flute, joined the band in 1999 subsequent to his studies at the North Carolina School of the Arts and after permanently settling in Atlanta. Burbridge, who was born in the Bronx and raised in Washington, D.C., picked up the flute at 6 with lifelong training rooted in classical and jazz styles.
Between the 1998 album "Out of Madness" and 2002's "Joyful Noise," Trucks recorded the beautifully assembled "Soul Serenade" with evident nods to melodious masterpieces like Davis' "Kind of Blue."
In 1999, members of the Allman Brothers Band, one of Trucks' childhood idols, afforded Trucks the opportunity of a lifetime when they asked him if he'd like to play slide guitar with the band on the road. Already a bandleader himself at this time, Trucks decided to pull double duty and balance the two acts. He went on to play more than 365 shows in 2000 and 2001.
Now both fans and newcomers of The Derek Trucks Band have the chance to check out the band in its entirety in a live setting with the recent release of "Live at Georgia Theater" which features the group's most recent band mate, vocalist Mike Mattison. The double-disc work entails more than two hours of live music, covers and original pieces alike, all caught on tape at the popular venue in Athens in late October of 2003.
The Beach Reporter this week sat down with Trucks, 24, and talked about the new album, his influences and a look back at a few influential music scenes that have shaped the music of the present day.
The Beach Reporter: How did you come to pick the Georgia Theater?
Trucks: We record every night, we multitrack and when we decided to do a live record, everyone in the band tried to think back over the last six months if any shows stuck out. That show ended up on everyone's list. We went back and listened to four or five shows, and that one stuck out more than other ones. It was kind of like a house gig for the band, and so it feels really comfortable.
So it wasn't something in which you set out to record a live album?
No, not at all, we record every night just in case.
Do you listen to those recordings?
Oh, no, I listen to very few of them. It's like hearing the sound of your own voice; it's just a strange thing.
What has playing in different bands taught you about the creation of your own music?
You take different things from every group - playing with a band like the Allman Brothers, just realizing that a band can stay together for 35 years is pretty promising. You really start to find the common threads with any genre of music, which is just trying to put an emotion to sound and sometimes words. It's something you're constantly learning from and building on. Every time I return from being on the road with another group, it strengthens why I want to be in this band so much more, so it's a lucky situation to be in.
In terms of your band, it's a very eclectic group of people so when writing original music, is it oftentimes an environment in which anything goes?
Yeah, if it's what we think the band sounds like, we'll give anything a shot. It's nice having guys who are versatile enough to really try anything. There are not many groups I can think of that can hit as many different genres as these guys are able to do. We have people who were born in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; and from all over the country.
You include a quote from musician Su-Ra in 'Live at Georgia Theater.' What was the reason for this?
Su-Ra, for me, has been a huge influence from early on in the way he looked at things, and the fact that he kept a band together for more than 40 years making zero dollars is pretty fascinating to me. You don't see many groups hang together even when there are millions and millions of dollars at stake, and so when a band does it solely because they feel like they are on a mission I think there is a lot to that. He has been a huge inspiration of just keeping things going. That quote really in a way crystallizes the feelings that a lot of musicians have about the way the music industry and the way the musicians in general are taking things so lightly. It's almost become just commerce for most people. I think a lot of musicians when they first get into it they may have some pure intentions but maybe less than halfway into it they either decide to play real music or make money, and most of them choose the latter. So, it's refreshing when you hear somebody else verbalize what a lot of musicians feel which I think is if you're really going to do it, if you're really going to play, sometimes it's going to be the tougher road. With this band, I've been very fortunate that we have been able to do both and doing the Allman Brothers has obviously helped in the recognition of our band. We realize that we're very lucky in that sense because there are just so many amazing blues and jazz players who have a hard time paying rent.
Can you remember the first time when music affected you?
I guess at about 14 or 15. Somebody played me a video of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. It was old black and white footage and it completely changed the way I looked at music. That's when I decided that if I'm going to do this, I really have to buckle down and take it serious. Yonrico, Todd and I have all been playing together since I was a teen-ager. We started playing music that was left-of-center and that's when we realized it could be a hard road if we decided to do that but once you get the bug, you really have no choice, you're going to do it either way. I was pretty determined at 14 or 15 and was pretty sure that this is what I would be doing and whether I would be making a living at it or not was a different trip entirely, I think.
What was it about that footage that affected you so much?
I think the footage of Coltrane especially, the intensity, the look, the sound, it wasn't just for entertainment, it wasn't about that. You could tell he was on some other kind of search. At that point it hit me on that level but I don't think I understood all the other levels it was working at. He's one of those guys you can listen to for years and maybe five, 10, 15 years into it, you hear new things and it starts to make sense. There was just something about the intensity, the look in his eye that really struck me. Very few musicians whom I've seen or heard have affected me on that level. Definitely Duane Allman early on was one of the first but he and "Trane" and a few of the jazz guys were really the only ones I can think of who just stood there and played. There was a certain calm and intensity in what they did, and it wasn't about showmanship and sheer entertainment. You could tell they were working on a different level.
Any Coltrane albums that stick out in terms of reflecting this philosophy?
The obvious one is "A Love Supreme." That is definitely the one everyone seems to point to and it was his prayer - it's an amazing record. "Live at Birdland" I think is amazing and just as far as stretching the boundaries harmonically, "Giant Steps" was a huge breakthrough record. But there are probably a dozen more at least.
Who are some of your favorite guitarists?
A lot of the early guys. Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Duane Allman for electric slide was the guy, he and Elmore James. A lot of the early blues guys - Booker White and all the kings - Albert, Freddie, B.B. There are quite a few from that era. More contemporary, there are not a whole lot. I like the Sacred Steels guys a lot - Chuck Campbell, Aubrey Gent who are gospel players and are just amazing. My good friend Jimmy Herring has always been a big influence as well.
Do you think there are less influential guitarists these days as opposed to the past?
I think it comes in waves. I definitely think there seems to be less time put into the instrument these days. It seems like if you get to a certain level because the bar has been lowered that people sometimes start raving about musicians before maybe they deserve it. A lot of times when that happens. and you read articles about how great people are and they read it themselves, they really stop growing. I think a lot of times, the praise thrown at people really kind of stunts their musical growth. I see that happening with a lot of contemporaries. There are definitely guys out there though. It's usually more underground than not but there are definitely guys out there moving and stretching it forward, and doing things that I have never heard before.
How did you go about selecting the covers (Curtis Mayfield, Wayne Shorter, etc.) on this live album?
It's just music we listen to on the road and sometimes someone will mention in the bus, it would be fun to play that tune, and maybe the next day at sound check we will try to work it up. Some tunes stick and some tunes you place once or twice then let them go but Curtis Mayfield is a huge influence and really on some levels is an unsung hero. I mean people know who he is but he was writing songs in a way that was kind of like the North American version of Bob Marley in terms of the content. During that time period he was one of the few guys who was putting sentiment of the movement to words. He and Nina Simone definitely strike the band on that level. The Qawwali tune, I've been really into the Indian classical and the Pakistani and a lot of the traditional Middle Eastern music. We decided to throw a few of the melodies into the set as well.
Have you learned a lot musically by being on the road?
Sometimes I think about it and it almost seems it would be easier to grow just being surrounded by a local community of musicians like the blues scene in Chicago in the day or the Harlem renaissance. Within a two-block radius of Harlem you had 50 to 60 of the baddest musicians on the planet - that seems like the best flow of ideas. A lot of times, you get on the road and it's just four or five guys stuck in a van and you go from city to city, it becomes a little tedious and it's kind of hard to really exchange ideas with people. But there are other times when you're touring with another band and a lot of that happens, so I think it can happen both ways. But there are not a whole lot of scenes anymore because either people are playing in cover bands or doing session work. There are not just a lot of movements going on, but there are a few cities left - San Francisco, New York and a handful of others - and for the most part when you go from town to town you don't see this, this thriving music scene.
Do you have a theory as to why that is?
You know, I think it comes in waves. The obvious reason is that financially, I don't think people can afford to just play music anymore. At that time in Atlanta, there were 20 or 30 venues you could go and play original music, and there was an audience for it and people would come out. Even if you weren't making a lot of money you could survive and then when all those clubs dry up there is just nowhere for people to play; it's just a matter of what's available for people. In Harlem, that's definitely what was going on. There were hundreds of clubs in that area and people were playing every night and sitting in with other people, there was just so much music going on. It really takes a whole community for a scene like that to thrive. I think it comes and goes. Definitely in the last decade or so, live music and improvisational music has taken a pretty big hit. Other than the fact of the hype behind the jamband scene, but to me, that's really a handful of bands that have a big hippie following which isn't necessarily a lot of give and take, musically. String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic and Phish are doing their thing but that's not necessarily a scene, I'd say.
Today, it seems like the average music listener's attention span isn't what it used to be. Do you think that has anything to do with the live music scene?
Yeah, people can't sit through it anymore. You see the Ken Burns jazz series and the most you get out of one of the greatest solos ever taken is a 12-second clip. I think that has a lot to do with it because profound thoughts don't come out of three to four seconds of sound bites. You have to weed through a lot to get to these great moments and people just aren't willing to do that anymore.
It's a discipline like anything else.
That's for sure. A lot of other cultures, listening to music, there is a lot more expected from audiences, where over here it's, "You like it, all right great. You don't like it then fine, too." People don't have to be educated musically because you can't just walk into a great jazz show completely uninitiated and not know the history and tunes and changes people are playing and all of that, and completely understand it. You have to have some background to it which is why it's not a very popular form of music, I just think people aren't hip to what's going on inside of it and that's partly the fault of music education, there is none of that in schools. If it wasn't for me being 9 years old and touring around with blues bands and being around musicians, there is no way I would have been turned onto the music that I was.
What are your top-five desert-island records?
It changes day to day but let's see today.
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, "Signature Series Vol. 2." He's the master of Indian classical music in the last 100 years, amazing.
Mahalia Jackson, "Live at Newport."
John Coltrane, "Live at Birdland."
A Donnie Hathaway live record and maybe Glenn Gould playing some of Hayden's piano sonatas.
But tomorrow it would be five different ones, I'm sure.
For many countries around the world, deforestation has evolved into a widespread issue. It is an issue among a series of human errors against the environment manifested through effects of global warming and water pollution.
Australia is no stranger to the image of people cutting down 600-year-old trees every day, a topic of controversy which has always been at the forefront of the music written by the John Butler Trio. The group's latest album, "Sunrise Over Sea," recorded at Woodstock Studios in Melbourne, follows the 2003 work, "Living," and 2002's "Three." The latest album on Jarrah Records was certified a platinum-selling record within two weeks of its release.
John Butler, who was born in Torrance, moved back to his father's home in Australia with his family in 1986 at the age of 11. The family moved from the Los Angeles area to the small town of Pinjarra.
"Musically, I just write about what moves me and what is around me, which is my environment. I feel it is being used irresponsibly and it basically pisses me off," explained Butler. "I just write about my reactions; it could be on love or politics or the environment itself. During the first two albums, there was massive deforestation going on in southwestern Australia so that people in Japan and other places could make toilet paper out of it."
After taking a six-month break following the birth of his child, Butler began writing new songs and coordinating a recording session that featured his brother-in-law, Nicky Bomba, on the drums. Butler began recording "Sunrise Over Sea" in 2003, which was released several months ago. Shannon Birchall sat in on the project, playing bass.
As a young child, Butler grew up to appreciate all different genres of music surfacing mainly from cities in his old American homeland along with England. He first picked up his grandfather's 12-string guitar at the age of 16, and eventually turned to music full time at 21.
In the late 1990s, Butler moved to the states to attend college in the hopes of earning a fine arts degree but ended up leaving almost two years later. He discovered that he could earn a living at busking (playing in public for donations) while attending art school in Australia at Fremantle University. Butler finally dropped out of school indefinitely to pursue his music career. He began playing local venues in Fremantle during open mic nights and played regularly at Mojo's Bar which at the time was owned by Phil Stevens, Butler's manager. He spent $10,000 of his own money and recorded a self-titled debut album following the demo "Pickapart."
"It wasn't the money but the appreciation I was getting and that is how my energy materialized," Butler added. "All of the pressures of society saying to get a real job and make a living faded away, and it's still that way. If it all ends tomorrow, I could still go out busking to pay the rent and eat. That's all success is, paying the rent and eating. If you can do that with what you love, then it's even better."
Butler claims, like many musicians, that American popular culture is somewhat of a paradigm when it comes to musical attitudes and styles influencing numerous famous rock groups from around the world.
"Australia, like a lot of countries, is influenced by American music and its culture," Butler said. "I mean, the Rolling Stones were a blues band and there ain't no blues in England. We are influenced by blues, funk and jazz. All I can say is that it's very unique being an island. We do have all the influences from all over the world but yet it is a contained musical bacteria, so to speak, that grows to be unique."
Last August, Butler set out on a national tour and replaced Bomba with drummer Michael Barker since Bomba already had commitments to his own band, Bomba. Butler completed work on his new album by early 2004. Butler first began recording his albums despite interest from both independent major record companies. Since its release, the album "Three" has gone platinum in Australia, selling more than 70,000 copies. The group continues to tour all over the world with the likes of Gov't Mule, the Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer and Robert Randolph.
"In Australia, it was never really our idea to be an independent band, it's just that no one really wanted anything to do with us," Butler said. "We just realized we could do it and we started getting offers from labels after we started selling gold. By that time, we didn't need them. There seems to be a big swell for independent music; a place for it to grow without being signed and that is a really interesting trend for new musicians."
Famed French novelist Albert Camus once posed the rhetorical question "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?"
In describing such a harmony between singer/ songwriter Keller Williams and his life is one he would probably sum up with just a few words: simple, genuine and humorous.
Williams, who first picked up a guitar as a self-taught student at the age of 12, was once quoted as saying, "This whole music business is just an attempt to keep myself entertained."
This artistic mantra rings particularly true in Williams' latest work, entitled "Home," with songs inspired by his love handles, his two dogs and the good old saying, "You are what you eat."
"Home" is Williams first solo studio effort in which he plays all of the instruments on the record and creates what he terms the "blatant looped drums." Williams is what you would characterize as a live-show artist in that he's acquired the majority of his fan base through his live gigs just the same way bands like Phish have.
Williams this week talked with The Beach Reporter over the phone from somewhere in Pennsylvania about this new album that was recorded in his hometown of Fredericksburg, Va., and the silly, lighthearted content of his lyrics and titles to his instrumental jams.
Playing all the instruments yourself with the exception of what you describe as 'blatant looped drums,' did you ever get bored with just you?
Well, I don't consider myself a real drummer and every band is as good as its drummer, so I think the other records might be a little faster in the sense that there are real true drummers. But I did the best I could, I had a good time doing it and I feel like I got the point across. I was there with my engineer, Jeff Covert. So he was there to bounce off ideas and so I wasn't there completely alone.
Since you are playing all of the instruments, are you writing some of the songs like a composer would with an entire piece made for a band or orchestra?
Yeah, when I'm writing a song there is always kind of an accompaniment to an arrangement in my mind, so putting it down in a band setting wasn't really difficult at all. Most of the songs were all road-tested long before I recorded the album so I had a really good grasp of the arrangements going into the recording.
How did you put together the instrumental song 'Butt Ass Nipple' with all of its changes?
It started out with the djembe (West African percussion drum) track and then it went to the percussion track. It's an interesting percussion song so it's fun to actually name those because there are no words so there is nothing to go on other than imagination, I guess. Butt ass nipple is kind of a saying of my little clique of friends, describing when it's really cold. When it's kind of cold it's "nipplely" but when it's really cold to where you're sitting shivering it's downright butt ass nipple.
I think the song 'Dogs' is so funny because I usually expect somewhat of a serious lyrical content with a reggae-type rhythm and tone, yet here you are talking about your dogs.
Yes, they are about my two dogs. When you hang around with your dogs all the time, it's pretty hard not to write a song about them, especially if you're trying to stay away from love songs and political songs but trying to write songs just the same. You tend to write songs about things in your surroundings. I think dog owners can really relate to that song. They become so much a part of the family that they're a big part of your whole life.
In fact, most of your lyrics have a lighthearted and humorous tone to them. Is that kind of how you approach the lyrical process?
Yeah, I put myself in the place of the audience, really. I kind of write and sing about what I would want to hear if I was out in the audience. However, I can relate to the darker sad songs and political songs because I think it was what the artist was feeling at the time. Fortunately, my life has been really good, I've been able to travel with my wife and I have a great road crew so I'm usually pretty happy and it just comes through in my music.
Is this record kind of an ode to your hometown in Virginia?
Yeah, all of my studio albums have never been recorded in my hometown. I always had to drive or fly to record but this one was done in Fredericksburg.
How does the live show work out since you are playing all of the instruments?
What I do is this thing called live phrase sampling. I have a machine that is kind of like delayed pedal and what I do is loop sounds. I step on the pedal, I play something or sing something, I step on the pedal again and it repeats what I just played or sang over and over again. So then I can go in and layer a bass line and a drum line, and the next thing you know, you kind of have a whole band setting.
With the song 'Moving Sidewalk,' did you do each part of the vocal percussion parts separately?
Yeah, it started out with the guitar track, the vocal percussion track, the bass line and then the final vocals last. Since these songs have been road-tested, I can go and lay down a vocal track without anything else happening. I know the arrangement as it's going and I'd mentally sing words as I was doing the vocal percussion track, which was first to start out on that song.
Do you then road-test a lot of your tunes before walking into the studio?
Oh yeah, I'm always looking for something new and interesting to play on stage and if it's a new song, I'm not going to save it for when it comes out on a record. I'm definitely going to play them as I write them.
Are you then writing songs quite often?
No, it's not that often. I write about a half dozen songs a year.
